


Class Four Full-Roaming Mutation

by Mansion



Category: The Thrilling Adventure Hour
Genre: Episode Style, Gen, Screenplay/Script Format
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-13
Updated: 2014-08-13
Packaged: 2018-02-13 00:30:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2130282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mansion/pseuds/Mansion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crime, mad science and shoot-outs. Or, y'know, a pretty typical Tuesday on Mars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Class Four Full-Roaming Mutation

**Author's Note:**

> Mild spoilers up to "Wild Wild Quest."
> 
> (Note: This was written before "Dinner and a Groovy" and is now mildly non-canon compliant.)

FOLKSY HAL

We join our heroes in the wild outskirts of Mars, in the midst of a search for an unknown target...

_(SFX: Galloping/rocket sounds, continuing under scene)_

SPARKS

Wherever this thing is hiding, it's way out in the sticks. Or... rocks. Tiny, boring rocks.

CROACH

We are miles away from any non-indigenous flora such as would produce any fibrous plant matter designated "wood" or "sticks."

SPARKS

No, it's just a... Ugh. Does every conversation have to be like this?

CROACH

Like what, Sparks Nevada?

_(Galloping SFX stops)_

Wait. Silence. I am sensing something.

SPARKS

You picking up on that Class Four yet?

CROACH

No. The being whom I sense is...

_(MUSIC: The Red Plains Rider's theme)_

CROACH

The Red Plains Rider. Atop that mesa.

SPARKS

Hey, how about that?

_(SFX: Approaching galloping, then abrupt stop)_

RED

Dang it. Are y'all gonna come in and cowboy up all over what I been doing? And if you are, could you at least be quieter about it? I been staking out this place for half a day already waiting for that robot bandit to roll through and I really don't need your help.

SPARKS

_(chuckles)_

Pfft... Yeah, obviously. You were already the best shot on Mars before you got all nanoteched up and Martian-invincible. No, we're doing a whole other thing. Didn't even know you were out this way. That's funny.

CROACH

Were I Plom the Mirthful, I would express an appropriate level of amusement.

SPARKS

That's a guy? I wanna hang out with that guy. Someone who'd actually get my jokes.

CROACH

Sparks Nevada, you construct jokes?

SPARKS

That's hurtful, Croach.

CROACH

I staged a query to imply that your attempts at humorous phasing are so ill timed as to be indiscernible from regular speech patterns.

RED

Alright, Croach. Quit showing off. So... What are y'all doing out here then?

SPARKS

Missing property-slash-animal control or something of the sort. Got a call from one of the fringe labs.

RED

A mad science thing?

SPARKS

Yeah, apparently a Class Four Sentient Organic Experiment got loose or took or something. To be honest, I ain't got all the details on it. You don't really get linear conversations trying to talk to mad scientists.

RED

Class Four? Is that bad?

SPARKS

Worse than a Class Three. Like probably a mutant thing with a bunch of robot parts or whatever.

RED

_(Wistfully)_

Aw, really?

SPARKS

Jealous?

RED

...This stakeout is real boring.

SPARKS

Yeah? I always found 'em sorta relaxing.

RED

Well, you're weird like that.

SPARKS

So... You wanna tag along, Red?

CROACH

I would be able to sense the power signature of any metal being within a considerable radius of our travel.

RED

Oh, alright. Let's ride.

_(SFX: Galloping, continuing under scene)_

Which lab is your thing even from?

SPARKS

I forget. Wrote it down somewhere...

CROACH

There are an inordinate amount of them in this quadrant.

SPARKS

Yeah, they get tax breaks, so...

RED

...You're kidding.

SPARKS

Nope. You know mad science is like the fifth leading industry on Mars, right? You don't get FTL travel and perpetual energy machines from scientists who play dice by all the rules of the known universe.

RED

That is... maybe the dumbest idea I ever heard? Put a bunch of folks who make death rays and mind-switching guns and such out in the wilderness and hope they come up with something useful before they destroy the planet?

SPARKS

It actually ain't terrible, net environmental impact-wise. There's a whole report on it, if you wanna read it.

RED

Nobody ever wants to read those reports but you, Nevada.

SPARKS

...It was a really good report. Lots of... informative graphs...

CROACH

I would be under onus to you if you did not require me to read that report.

SPARKS

Okay, I wasn't going to, but if making an onus thing about it makes you happy, sure.

CROACH

I derive no particular happiness from tabulating onus. I am merely tasked with it, as part of my onus to my tribe.

SPARKS

Oh...kay? You know, it's been years of this and I still ain't one hundred percent sure how it works.

CROACH

It has been four Earth-years, three hundred twenty-one days, and six hours since I was first placed under onus to you, Sparks Nevada.

RED

Y'all's anniversary is coming up, huh?

CROACH

He never remembers it.

RED

That's shameful, Nevada. Make an effort.

SPARKS

Can both of you... not? For like... a minute? Croach, are you picking up anything yet?

CROACH

I am sensing a metal being, possibly the assailant of which The Red Plains Rider spoke, nearly one Earth kilometer to the northeast. Also, an unusually high amount of local fauna is in the area.

SPARKS

Weird, but whatever. Let's slow it down.

_(Galloping SFX stops)_

SPARKS

Well, you're up first, Red. That the right robot?

RED

(to Sparks) Yup, that's the one I'm looking for. Been bothering a couple of the local mutante folks.

_(louder)_

Hey! Reach for the sky, you! Whatever your name is.

ROBOT

They call me Zipfile Wyatt. You want to know why?

RED

Nope.

ZIPFILE WYATT

It's because I'm real good at compressing stuff.

_(SFX: Demonstrative hydraulic noises)_

Specifically, organic matter. Specifically organic matter what come to bother me in the form of y'all law-type folks. Only I don't even have to bother, on account of my new pet. Sic 'em, boy! Or girl! Or other! Kill!

_(SFX: Heat crackle and squishy moving blob noises)_

SPARKS

What... even is that?

RED

Looks like a bunch of lava-skippers all stuck together, but... why?

CROACH

It is...

 _Adorable!_ I wish to pet it.

SPARKS

That seems like a terrible ide--Okay, or do whatever you want, apparently.

RED

He likes lava-skippers for some reason. Tried to keep one as a pet once when we were kids. It went--

_(SFX: Sizzle)_

CROACH

Ow!

RED

About that well.

CROACH

I am sound. Praise Nah Notek.

RED

_(sotto voce)_

He's always been weird. It ain't just been since you showed up.

SPARKS

Good to know.

ZIPFILE WYATT

Sigh. This monster what I stole from that science lady ain't hardly killing you folks at all. I gotta figure out how to train it better.

CROACH

Do not designate this being a monster! It is clearly a gentle being that--

_(through gritted teeth)_

Ow! ...did not mean to do that.

SPARKS

Seriously, Croach, maybe back up from that thing. It is leaking so much lava.

ZIPFILE WYATT

Guess I better take care of y'all my own self.

_(SFX: Laser blast)_

CROACH

The Red Plains Rider!

_(SFX: Thud)_

Ugh!

RED

Dang it, Croach. You didn't have to do that. I got Nah Notek in me, too.

CROACH

_(pained)_

Apologies. It was force of habit.

RED

Hey, robot! Don't shoot people's friends in front of them.

_(SFX: Several laser blasts)_

Ain't polite.

ZIPFILE WYATT

_(powering down to a total stop by the end of the sentence)_

Neither is shooting the shooter back...

RED

I can live with that.

You okay, Croach?

CROACH

I am recovered, The Red Plains Rider. I am under onus to you for the superfluous act of intercepting a laser bullet.

RED

Reckon you ain't. Those things really hurt, so... Suppose I am under onus to you back. Call it square?

CROACH

Agreed.

SPARKS

Aww, you two with the onuses. _Cute_.

RED

You really wanna start down that trail, Nevada?

SPARKS

Yeah, no, I really don't.

Hey, you bagged your outlaw like you wanted to.

RED

Looks like it.

SPARKS

So you can haul 'em back to the freeze cells at the station while we take care of this mad science lava... thing.

RED

Ugh. Vigilante justice is more fun when the law ain't around.

SPARKS

It was good seeing you again, too, Red.

_(SFX: Hover device powering up)_

RED

Alright, got 'em hitched up. See ya around, Nevada. You too, Croach.

SPARKS / CROACH

     Bye. / Farewell!

_(SFX: Galloping, fading out)_

SPARKS

Okay, put that thing in a stasis field.

CROACH

But--!

SPARKS

It ain't gonna hurt it, and we can't haul it back to the lab if it's moving around.

CROACH

Fine. But I shall transport it.

_(SFX: Stasis field forming)_

SPARKS

Before we get moving, I'm just gonna call that mad scientist real quick.

_(SFX: Communicator pulsing)_

FEMALE VOICE

_(flustered, distracted)_

Doctor Trepanning here. What? Hi. What?

SPARKS

This is the Marshal. Just to be totally clear, the Class Four you reported missing is a bunch of mutant lava-skippers and this ain't some other experiment from some other lab, right?

DR. TREPANNING

Oh, good! You found Mittens!

SPARKS

I'm gonna regret this... You named this thing Mittens?

DR. TREPANNING

From when the spliced zygotes first hatched! I could only handle her with heat-resistant gloves.

CROACH

Did you visually record evidence of this?

DR. TREPANNING

So much! I even made gifs!

CROACH

I wish to view them _all_.

SPARKS

Hang on a second. Before we head over there, I got a question for you, Doc.

You don't happen to have any mind control or behavior-altering sort of devices around or on at all, do you? Because my partner is basically... the most susceptible to them, so I'm gonna need you to turn them all off.

CROACH

I am not.

SPARKS

Yeah? What about when Earth's moon was in Mars' orbit and you got all tetchy and shed a bunch of skin? Or when you absorbed Pemily's murder-feelings? Or when that wanna-be mayor zapped you with that mind control ray and you got real huggy?

CROACH

You do not need to continue to list examples of times I have been behaviorally compromised.

SPARKS

Well, I could, is the thing. Anyway, Doc? You got anything like that?

DR. TREPANNING

That doesn't sound like the kind of thing I'd do... Not really my brand.

SPARKS

Think... really really hard about it.

DR. TREPANNING

Um, would a high-frequency signal that encourages mating cycles in the local fauna so I have more fodder for my unholy experimentations fall under that purview, maybe?

SPARKS

Gross. Yes. I absolutely mean that. Turn it off. Take the batteries out. Smash it with a rock.

DR. TREPANNING

I will do... one of those. You won't know which!

_(giggles evilly)_

SPARKS

Doesn't matter. We'll be by in half an hour or so.

_(SFX: Communicator turning off)_

CROACH

Your intuition was remarkably on-point, Sparks Nevada.

SPARKS

Things don't change much on Mars.

CROACH

G'loot Praktaw.

SPARKS

See? Exactly.

_(MUSIC: Outro music)_

FOLKSY HAL

Is this the end of our heroes' outlaw and mutant troubles? ...Yes! Yes it is! Tune in next time for different troubles entirely on SPARKS NEVADA, MARSHAL ON MARS!

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Annakie for all the IM conversations that seeded a lot of these jokes.


End file.
